Identifying and Defining Unfamiliar Vocabulary

Lesson Title: Vocabulary Activity while reading a novel. 

Common Core Standard:


CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.8.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words or phrases based on grade 8 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.


Type of Web 2.0 Tool: Wikis

Brief Description of Overall Lesson:

While Reading a book, students will use a wiki to collect unfamiliar vocabulary words.  

Create a wiki and allow all students to be editors. 

When reading, ask students to identify words that are unfamiliar to them on the wiki.  Then are then asked to find the meaning of that word and define it.  Also ask students to either cite or link their word and definition to the source that they found their information from.  That not only encourages responsible online citing but it also allows other students who are also unfamiliar with those words to further explore the word past just the definition. 

You could have this free an unstructured activity that occurs during the reading tasks, or this could be a more structured classroom activity that is set aside during the lesson.  You may assign students a number of words to find throughout the novel.  

If you'd prefer this to a be a more structured classroom activity, I would suggest this idea: 

At the point of the lesson that you would like students to do this, ask students to identify a word that they have found that they would like to define.  Go through the classroom sharing words to make sure that there aren't duplicates. Once each student has identified at least one word (more if you'd like), they can then use classroom time to research, define and link their word in the wiki. 

Ask students to continuously add to the wiki and refer to it when reading if they are unfamiliar with words.